Expertise and project support for reciprocating compressor units
We offer technical support and expertise services for the development and manufacturing of reciprocating compressor units.
Project support and expertise services may be required by Customers who do not have their own expert department or experts in the relevant industry - reciprocating compressor equipment. In such cases, it can be difficult to prepare competent technical specifications and requirements for potential suppliers, as well as evaluate their proposals and monitor results at all stages of the project.
Project support and expertise for the development and manufacturing of a compressor unit can be carried out throughout the entire project or at a specific stage:
- Development of technical specifications and requirements
- Equipment selection
- Evaluation of technical proposals from suppliers
- Design Work Documentation (DWD) expertise
- Participation of independent experts in HAZOP and HAZID risk sessions
- Control over Compressor Unit (CU) manufacturing at all stages
- Acceptance at the manufacturer's facility
- Control of commissioning
The result of each stage completion is an expert report and/or a complete package of documents provided by the Supplier, fully compliant with the Customer's requirements, industry standards, and accepted industry engineering practices aimed at ensuring maximum reliability, maintainability, and ease of equipment maintenance and operation.
Detailed description
Review of technical specifications and requirements for the unit
Assessment of technical specifications and requirements for their compliance with the planned operating conditions of the compressor and the current project objectives:
- Verification of compliance with current regulatory documents
- We help establish correct requirements for:
- unit design and compressor configuration
- installation methods
- operating conditions
- control system
- unit regulation methods
- supply scope
- manufacturing control and testing
- preservation, storage, and other aspects
The outcome is minimizing the time for agreeing on specifications with the Supplier and Manufacturer, as well as ensuring compliance of all requirements with current regulatory documents and generally accepted industry engineering practices.
Equipment selection
Correct selection of the compressor and its drive is a critically important step that determines the operation and maintenance of the compressor station throughout its entire lifecycle.
Equipment selection is determined not only by the required parameters for pressure increase and capacity but also by available energy sources at the operation site, the size of the available area for equipment placement, transport accessibility, etc. These conditions influence the choice of drive type, unit power capacity (number of units), number of compression stages, capacity control method, etc.
We help make the optimal choice to ensure the most reliable and safe operation.
Project criticality assessment and determination of required studies/calculations
The more important the compressor unit is for infrastructure, the greater the unit power and wider the range of operating parameters – the more important it becomes to perform modeling of pulsation and vibration loads on the equipment. The cost of such studies may be comparable to the cost of a small unit. However, for large units/large fleet of identical equipment or for units whose downtime leads to a shutdown of the entire process in which they operate, conducting these studies is mandatory and their cost is incomparably small compared to the cost of equipment and its downtime.
Our experts, based on methodology formed by years of experience, objectively assess project criticality and determine the necessity and scope of additional studies.
Evaluation of technical and commercial proposals, compilation of comments and tracking their resolution. Recommendations for supplier selection
It is extremely important to properly evaluate the equipment proposed by the Manufacturer/Supplier for compliance with the initial specifications and requirements. Often, equipment manufacturers may offer technical solutions that they are accustomed to implementing or that are convenient for them. But these solutions may not always meet the customer's stated requirements or may not correspond to reliability, ease of operation, and maintenance requirements.
At the proposal evaluation stage, we work with the Manufacturer to assess their typical solutions, approve their application in the project, or provide recommendations for changing or developing new design solutions to ensure proper installation, operation, and maintenance of the unit.
Conducting and participating in the kickoff meeting between the Customer, Supplier, and Manufacturer of the compressor unit
A crucial stage of the Compressor Unit development and manufacturing project is the kickoff meeting between the Customer and Supplier/Manufacturer, where the following main issues should be discussed:
- Project schedule
- Responsibility demarcation
- Project control points requiring acceptance
- Final selection of equipment and its suppliers/manufacturers
- Appointment of project managers from both sides
Our experts act as organizers of this meeting, ensuring its productivity and documentation of all key provisions and project stages, as well as monitoring compliance with the agreements reached.
Expertise of the working design documentation for the compressor unit
This work is divided into three stages:
Assessment of basic technical solutions
The following are controlled:
- proposed equipment installation methods
- piping configuration
- process diagrams (main gas pipeline, lubrication systems, cooling, fuel gas, etc.)
- presence and location of I&C instruments
Evaluation of the final version of DWD before production launch
Control of compliance of designed elements and systems with regulatory requirements, results of analytical studies (acoustic and torsional vibration analyses, strength analyses of the unit frame and other calculations), implementation of recommendations issued at previous stages of expertise.
Verification and adjustment of control logic/algorithm, as well as setpoint map and their values
Control of the correctness of described control algorithms for compliance with equipment manufacturer requirements and safety rules. Control of the correctness of specified warning and emergency setpoint values relative to equipment design operating parameters.
The expertise results in a list of required changes, indicating proposed solutions and recommendations, implementation of which is mandatory controlled and subjected to re-expertise before issuing a positive conclusion on the compliance of adopted design solutions with regulatory documents and generally accepted industry engineering practice.
Participation in HAZOP and HAZID risk sessions
To obtain the highest quality results from risk sessions, it is extremely important to have independent experts participate in areas related to CU manufacturing and operation (equipment used, automation, construction, industrial safety, etc.).
We act as experts in reciprocating compressor equipment at risk sessions, ensuring the most thorough elaboration of risk factors associated with the installation, operation, and maintenance of units.
Our experts have hundreds of commissioned units and conducted audits behind them.
Our experience allows us to evaluate:
- potential risks associated with existing design and engineering solutions
- risks of operating mode deviation impact on all unit components and parts
- potential causes of deviations and determine their consequences with high probability
Based on identified risk factors, we form a list of recommendations (implementation of which is controlled) ensuring safe equipment operation.
Control over compressor unit manufacturing
Even well-developed DWD that meets regulatory requirements and generally accepted industry engineering practice cannot guarantee quality manufacturing. During CU production, errors may occur (human factor) that need to be tracked throughout the production cycle.
Our specialists conduct acceptance at pre-agreed stages of CU production with the Customer and Supplier (including acceptance at the Manufacturer's facility), which may reveal deviations from DWD and/or inadequate quality of manufactured elements. As a result of acceptance at each stage, a list of comments is compiled and their resolution is controlled.
Acceptance of the compressor unit at site, control of installation and commissioning
Typically, for CU acceptance at the operation site, a commission is formed consisting of representatives from the Customer, Supplier, Contractors, and independent experts.
During acceptance, our experts control:
- integrity of equipment and assemblies/systems transported as assembled units
- presence of preservation violation signs
- delivery completeness
- site readiness for equipment installation
Control continues during equipment installation, when the following is monitored:
- installation and assembly correctness of all elements
- stress absence in pipeline connections (flange alignment)
- shaft line alignment
- performance of pre-startup checks and procedures according to equipment manufacturer requirements
- verification of CU control algorithms operation
- correctness of warning and emergency setpoint values